Faking It

" D o people really post fake photos about themselves on the Internet?"

Calixte looked at his wife knowingly. They had just finished lunch aboard his yacht a while ago, and while he was enjoying his coffee after, he had caught Eden gnawing on her lip with her frowning gaze fixed on her phone.

"You watched another documentary on Tiktok, didn't you?"

Her guilty expression was too adorable to resist, and he pushed himself up on one elbow in order to lean over and steal a long, passionate kiss from her rose-tinted lips.

When he lifted his head, her mouth looked properly swollen, and it was one of the most satisfying things he had ever seen.

Today was definitely going to be another good day.

Calixte leaned back against his side of the two-seater lounge. "It's yes, by the way."

Eden immediately sat up at his words. "Why, though?"

"Because it makes them feel good, I suppose. But don't take my word for it." Calixte had zero presence in social media, and unlike others who paid a fortune to make themselves popular online, Calixte had people on his payroll to ensure the opposite.

"But...if you know what you're posting is fake, then how can you feel good about it?"

Calixte's lips pressed together in an effort to stifle his smile.

Not once did his life would one day come to this: a relaxing Sunday spent sailing down the Riviera, and him actually enjoying the challenge of pondering existential questions brought about by his wife's unfamiliarity with the outside world.

Calixte had rarely spent his time considering his future. But in the few times he did, he had only seen three possibilities: an early grave because of his line of work, a solitary existence even in his old age (also because of his work)...or him possibly succumbing to temporary insanity by marrying a cookie-cutter wife who was young and beddable but without much else to offer.

None of these scenarios had been worth looking forward to, but he had also ended up drawing a frustrating blank when trying to think of a way to change the direction of his future.

He had always felt that loneliness was the path set in stone for him.

Until Eden.

Every second he spent with her had meaning, and everything she said or did fascinated him---even her troubling ability to see evil in "normal" people.

"You know it's not real," his wife persisted in pointing out, "and you can't fool yourself otherwise."

"That's where you're wrong. You just have to want it badly enough, and you'd be surprised with what you can convince yourself is true."

"I...see."

Calixte took his shades off to take a better look at his wife, and the frown creasing her forehead had him sitting up as well. "Why do you think they do it?"

"To make money?"

Ah.

"It's all my father and his men thought of," Eden confessed. "All of their lives revolved around money, and I thought..." His wife shook her head. "But I guess normal people are different."

And there it was , Calixte thought in amusement. Her inexplicable bias towards "normal" people, which one day he would really need to take the time to correct.

But for now, he would simply focus on the issue at hand.

"I'm sorry to say you are wrong about that as well, mon ange. Most people are exactly the same as your father. The only difference is that they want to look good while finding ways to make money." "That's not really...bad? Or is it?"

Calixte's lip curled slightly as her question reminded him of the many crimes he had witnessed in the past---and of the lives that had been wasted and pointlessly lost in people's quest to maintain the status quo.

" Normal people can be a lot worse than your father, unfortunately. Many of them work harder at looking good than finding the means to make an honest living. Many of them wouldn't hesitate to sell their soul to the devil if they could. And the only reason they're unable to is because they're either too lazy or spineless to do it."

"You're too much of a cynic."

"While you're too much of an optimist...and that's why you don't see me coming like this."

By the time he finished speaking, he already had his wife on top of him and Calixte was busy untying her bikini top.

"Calixte!"

Her tone was shocked and breathless at the same time, but he didn't bother responding, intent as he was on getting rid of her bikini bottom.

"Noooo---"

His wife's protest melted into a moan as he surged inside of her with an upward thrust, and her body automatically adjusted even as her cheeks turned a deeper shade of pink.

"Is it your first time to make love on a yacht?"

"You know it is," she whimpered.

"What about out in the open like this?"

"You know e-everything's a f-first.... aaaah!"

Getting his wife to scream outside the bedroom was also a first, and that was how it would always be...even if there came a time that she decided to leave him.